An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that the Federal Communications Commission could relax rules limiting the number of newspapers, radio stations and television stations that a single entity may own in a given market. The decision is likely to prompt further consolidation among broadcast outlets, some of which say they need more freedom to address competition from internet and cable companies. Critics fear that media consolidation will limit the perspectives available to viewers.

The rules at issue in the case, initially adopted between 1964 and 1975, had been meant "to promote competition, localism and viewpoint diversity by ensuring that a small number of entities do not dominate a particular media market," Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote for the court. But the rules, he added, were a relic of a different era -- "an early-cable and pre-internet age when media sources were more limited." "By the 1990s, however, the market for news and entertainment had changed dramatically," Justice Kavanaugh wrote. "Technological advances led to a massive increase in alternative media options, such as cable television and the internet. Those technological advances challenged the traditional dominance of daily print newspapers, local radio stations and local television stations."

The case, Federal Communications Commission v. Prometheus Radio Project, No. 19-1231, concerned three rules. One barred a single entity from owning a radio or television station and a daily print newspaper in the same market, the second limited the number of radio and television stations an entity can own in a single market, and the third restricted the number of local television stations an entity could own in the same market. In 2017, the commission concluded that the three rules no longer served their original purposes of promoting competition and the like. The vote was 3 to 2 along party lines, with the commission's Republican members in the majority.

The Supreme Court has unanimously decided that Facebook text message alerts don't violate laws against unwanted auto-dialed calls. The court ruled that a lower court defined illegal "robocalls" too broadly and that the term should only apply to systems that generate lists of numbers and call them indiscriminately, not a system that simply stores numbers and automatically calls them. From a report: The lawsuit involves text messages that notify Facebook users of an attempted login. Its plaintiff, Noah Duguid, sued after receiving unwanted, erroneous notifications despite not having a Facebook account. Duguid argued that Facebook was violating the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). An appeals court agreed, but the Supreme Court interpreted the law's definitions differently. Closely parsing the TCPA's grammar, the court concluded that an illegal auto-dialing system "must use a random or sequential number generator," and this definition "excludes equipment like Facebook's login notification system, which does not use such technology."

One of the many promises made in President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure plan is to deliver "future proof" broadband to every home in American within eight years. It sets aside $100 billion to accomplish this feat. Motherboard reports: While specifics are murky, a new fact sheet on the proposal states the plan won't just involve throwing more subsidies at America's deep-pocketed incumbents, an American pastime studies show historically hasn't delivered on the promise of faster, better broadband. Instead, the Biden administration says it plans to "prioritize support" for broadband networks owned, operated, or run in concert with local governments. Frustrated by limited competition and substandard service, some 750 U.S. communities have built local broadband networks that studies have shown are faster and less expensive than traditional options.

"President Biden's plan will promote price transparency and competition among internet providers, including by lifting barriers that prevent municipally-owned or affiliated providers and rural electric co-ops from competing on an even playing field with private providers, and requiring internet providers to clearly disclose the prices they charge," the plan states. The problem: neither the Biden FCC nor broader administration can do much about such state-level restrictions. Previous efforts by the Obama FCC to eliminate state barriers to community broadband were shot down in court. Still, clear support for such efforts is a course change from the GOP, which has repeatedly tried to ban community broadband entirely.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The cherry blossom season, Japan's traditional sign of spring, peaked at the earliest date since records began 1,200 years ago, research shows. The 2021 season in the city of Kyoto peaked on 26 March, according to data collected by Osaka University. Increasingly early flowerings in recent decades are likely to be as a result of climate change, scientists say. The records from Kyoto go back to 812 AD in imperial court documents and diaries. The previous record there was set in 1409, when the season reached its peak on March 27.

"In Kyoto, records of the timing of celebrations of cherry blossom festivals going back to the 9th Century reconstruct the past climate and demonstrate the local increase in temperature associated with global warming and urbanization," according to an earlier paper published in the scientific journal Biological Conservation. Since about 1800, the data suggest the peak date in Kyoto has gradually been moving back from mid-April towards the beginning of the month. This year, the season began in Hiroshima on March 11, eight days earlier than the previous record, which was set in 2004, according to Japan Forward.

"One more thing," Steve Jobs would say at the end of many an Apple keynote, giving his cue for announcing a surprise new product. But Apple can't keep its founder's turn of phrase for itself, a London judge ruled Monday as he sided with Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group AG in a long-running dispute over trademarks. From a report: Swatch's attempt to register the phrase might have been an attempt to "annoy" Apple, Judge Iain Purvis said in his ruling, but Apple can't block it from doing so. Purvis said in his ruling that the phrase probably originated with the fictional TV detective Columbo. A previous court officer was wrong to say that "Swatch's intentions had stepped over the line between the appropriate and inappropriate use of a trade mark," Purvis added. The dispute is part of a broader battle between the Cupertino, California-based company and Swatch over the naming of watches that goes back to the launch of Apple's own product in 2015 when Apple was prevented from calling its version the 'iWatch'. The dispute with Swatch extended to other trademarks including the watchmaker's move to register 'Tick Different' evoking Apple's own slogan of 'Think Different.'

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill on Tuesday requiring all cellphones and tablets sold in the state to automatically block pornography. In order for it to take effect though, at least five other states have to pass the measure. The Hill reports: The bill, H.B. 72, is aimed at establishing filter requirements and enforcement for tablets and smartphones activated in the state on or after Jan. 1 of the year the measure takes effect, according to its text. Manufacturers that don't abide by the law could face fines of $10 for each violation with a cap of $500. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Susan Pulishper (R), said she was "grateful" that Cox signed the bill, which she said was aimed at keeping porn away from children, the AP notes. She also noted that parents could take the filters off.

Jason Groth, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, told the news service that the measure was "another example of the Legislature dodging the constitutional impacts of the legislation they pass." He further said the bill's constitutionality will likely be argued in court.

A married pair of San Francisco entrepreneurs were indicted Thursday on multiple federal charges, the latest twist in the saga of a once trendy, now bankrupt fecal matter-testing startup. From a report: Zachary Schulz Apte and Jessica Sunshine Richman, co-founders of defunct microbiome testing company uBiome, are accused of bilking their investors and health insurance providers, federal prosecutors said. They were indicted Thursday on multiple federal charges, including conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and money laundering. Their court appearances have not been scheduled, and it was not immediately clear if they had attorneys who could speak on their behalf. Apte, 36, and Richman, 46, founded uBiome in 2012 as a direct-to-consumer service called "Gut Explorer." Customers would submit a fecal sample that the company analyzed in a laboratory, comparing the consumer's microbiome to others' microbiomes, prosecutors said. The service cost less than $100 initially.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away Facebook's bid to pare back a $15 billion class action lawsuit accusing the company of illegally tracking the activities of internet users even when they are logged out of the social media platform. Reuters reports: The justices declined to hear Facebook's appeal of a lower court ruling that revived the proposed nationwide litigation accusing the company of violating a federal law called the Wiretap Act by secretly tracking the visits of users to websites that use Facebook features such as the "like" button. The litigation also accuses the company of violating the privacy rights of its users under California law but Facebook's appeal to the Supreme Court involved only the Wiretap Act.

Four individuals filed the proposed nationwide class action lawsuit in California federal court seeking $15 billion in damages for Menlo Park, California-based Facebook's actions between April 2010 and September 2011. The company stopped its nonconsensual tracking after it was exposed by a researcher in 2011, court papers said. Facebook said it protects the privacy of its users and should not have to face liability over commonplace computer-to-computer communications. Facebook has more than 2.4 billion users worldwide, including more than 200 million in the United States.

The case centers on Facebook's use of features called "plug-ins" that third-parties often incorporate into their websites to track the browsing histories of users. Along with digital files called "cookies" that can help identify internet users, the plaintiffs accused Facebook of packaging this tracked data and selling it to advertisers for profit. Facebook said it uses the data it receives to tailor the content it shows its users and to improve ads on its service. [...] In its appeal to the Supreme Court, Facebook said it is not liable under the Wiretap Act because it is a party to the communications at issue by virtue of its plug-ins.

A judge has certified a class action suit against Apple for its fragile butterfly keyboard design. From a report: The suit covers anyone who purchased an Apple MacBook with a butterfly keyboard in seven states: California, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Washington, and Michigan. That includes people who bought a MacBook model dating between 2015 and 2017, a MacBook Pro model between 2016 and 2019, or a MacBook Air between 2018 and 2019. Judge Edward Davila certified the case with seven subclasses on March 8th in California, but the order remained sealed until late last week. It raises the stakes for a suit that was first filed in 2018, three years after Apple added the controversial butterfly switches to its laptops. The butterfly keyboard was slimmer than Apple's previous design, which used industry-standard scissor switches. But many disgruntled MacBook users found that Apple's revamped keyboard failed when even tiny particles of dust accumulated around the switches. That resulted in keys that felt "sticky," failed to register keypresses, or registered multiple presses with a single hit. Apple tweaked its butterfly keyboard multiple times, but after continued complaints, it abandoned the switches in 2020.

Apple infringed on a digital rights management patent, and must pay $308.5 million, a federal jury in Texas decided this week.

"Apple said it was disappointed with the ruling and would appeal," reports Bloomberg: "Cases like this, brought by companies that don't make or sell any products, stifle innovation and ultimately harm consumers," the company said in an emailed statement...

U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap last week also adopted a magistrate's recommendation denying Apple's request to find the patent invalid.

Brazil's consumer protection agency Procon-SP has fined Apple nearly $1.92 million for selling iPhone without a charger, reports Engadget (citing two technology blogs.) Apple's move was a violation of the country's Consumer Defense Code, according to the watchdog.

Procon-SP told Apple about the alleged violation in December. Apple responded by reiterating its environmental angle, arguing that it would reduce CO2 emissions and rare earth mining. It noted that many customers already had spare chargers. The agency clearly wasn't satisfied with that answer, however. In issuing the fine, Procon-SP executive director Fernando Capez told Apple it needed to respect Brazilian law.

The fine also covers allegedly misleading water resistance claims. Apple supposedly declined to repair iPhones that had suffered water damage under warranty despite touting the devices' ability to survive immersion for extended periods.

A Russian man has pleaded guilty in the U.S. to offering a Tesla employee $1 million to cripple the electric car company's massive electric battery plant in Nevada with ransomware and steal company secrets for extortion, prosecutors and court records said. The Associated Press reports: In a case that cybersecurity experts called exceptional for the risks he took, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Reno. Prosecutors alleged that Kriuchkov acted on behalf of co-conspirators abroad and attempted to use face-to-face bribery to recruit an insider to physically plant ransomware, which scrambles data on targeted networks and can only be unlocked with a software key provided by the attackers. Typically, ransomware gangs operating from safe havens hack into victim networks over the internet and download data before activating the ransomware.

"The fact that such a risk was taken could, perhaps, suggest that this was an intelligence operation aimed at obtaining information rather than an extortion operation aimed at obtaining money," said Brett Callow, a cybersecurity analyst at anti-virus software company Emsisoft. "It's also possible that the criminals thought the gamble was worth it and decided to roll the dice," Callow said. The FBI said the plot was stopped before any damage happened. Although Kriuchkov says the Russian government was aware of his case, prosecutors and the FBI have not alleged ties to the Kremlin.

"His guilty plea to conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer could have gotten him up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine," the report says. "But he's expected to face no more than 10 months under terms of his written plea agreement."

As WhatsApp spends months to address users' concerns and confusion about its planned policy update, there is evidently one entity it hasn't had much luck making inroads with: The Government of India. From a report: The Indian government alleged on Friday that WhatsApp's planned privacy update, which goes into effect in two months, violates local laws on several counts. In a filing to the Delhi High Court, the federal government also asked the court to prevent Facebook-owned messaging app from rolling out the update in India, WhatsApp's biggest market by users.

Tech companies led by Mozilla are urging the Federal Communications Commission to swiftly reinstate net neutrality rules stripped away under the Trump administration. From a report: In a letter to FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Friday, ADT, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Reddit, Vimeo and Wikimedia joined Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox web browser, in calling net neutrality "critical for preserving the internet as a free and open medium that promotes innovation and spurs economic growth." [...] In a blog post Friday, Mozilla Chief Legal Officer Amy Keating said the pandemic has made the need for net neutrality rules even more clear.

"In a moment where classrooms and offices have moved online by necessity, it is critically important to have rules paired with strong government oversight and enforcement to protect families and businesses from predatory practices," Keating said. "In California, residents will have the benefit of these fundamental safeguards as a result of a recent court decision that will allow the state to enforce its state net neutrality law. However, we believe that users nationwide deserve the same ability to control their own online experiences."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: An engineer working for Elon Musk's SpaceX pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to commit securities fraud by selling insider tips on the "dark web," the U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Thursday. The case was the first in which the SEC has brought an enforcement action alleging securities violations on the dark web, it said. James Roland Jones of Redondo Beach, California, faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison, the Department of Justice said. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

According to the agencies, from 2016 until at least 2017, Jones conspired with another unnamed person to access various dark web marketplaces, including a website claiming to be an insider trading forum, in search of material, non-public information to use for his own securities trading. Jones also devised a scheme to sell what he falsely claimed were insider tips on the dark web, the agencies said. Several users paying in bitcoin purchased these tips and ultimately traded based on the information Jones provided, they said.

Mobile app developer Kosta Eleftheriou, who publicly called out Apple earlier this year for negligence with regard to policing iOS scams and copycat apps on the App Store, has filed a lawsuit against the iPhone maker in California. From a report: He's accusing the company of exploiting its monopoly power over iOS apps "to make billions of dollars in profits at the expense of small application developers and consumers." Eleftheriou's company KPAW LLC, which he co-owns with his partner Ashley Eleftheriou, filed its complaint in Santa Clara County on Wednesday. It details the development and release timeline of Eleftheriou's Apple Watch keyboard app FlickType. At the time he began accusing Apple of abetting App Store scams early last month, Eleftheriou revealed that his FlickType app had been targeted by competing software he says either didn't work well or didn't work at all, and yet nonetheless chipped away at this sales and App Store rankings through false advertising and the purchase of fake reviews. After he complained, he said Apple did not do enough to combat the scams, though Apple did later remove some of the apps he called attention to.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last week in Washington, the Democratic-controlled U.S. House passed a sweeping labor law overhaul that would make it much easier for gig workers to prove they're actually employees with full-fledged union rights, rather than contractors as their bosses claim. Two days later in Democratic-ruled Connecticut, state lawmakers met by video conference to consider a less adversarial approach: Creating a special industrywide version of bargaining for gig workers, without making them employees. "It is clear that these platform apps are here to stay," state Senator Julie Kushner, a former United Auto Workers regional director who now co-chairs the Connecticut legislature's Labor and Public Employees Committee, said in an interview. "What's really important is that we look at, how do we adjust so that we are getting the benefit of the platform, and the approach to work, but also making sure that we are not ignoring workers' rights in the equation?"

The legislative proposal in Connecticut, spearheaded by a worker guild funded by Uber and Lyft, is a stab at the sort of compromise that some gig executives and union leaders have been seeking: boosting gig workers' rights, without granting them the full suite of protections that employees get under U.S. law. It reflects the eagerness of some lawmakers to find common ground between tech and labor and avoid the sort of pitched battle that's been raging in California and reverberating in boardrooms, union halls and government offices around the world. This week, Uber announced that it would reclassify its 70,000 U.K. drivers as "workers" eligible for minimum wage and paid vacation, among other benefits, after losing a national Supreme Court case. Harmony hasn't materialized so far in Connecticut: The companies don't support the current proposal. In testimony submitted last week, Uber said the bill as written "raises many concerns and creates a new, incredibly complicated process without the necessary due diligence and input from all stakeholders." Lyft, the second-largest ride-hailing company in the U.S, said the bill could harm "the flexibility and control that drivers currently enjoy."

AmiMoJo shares a report from The Verge: State antitrust watchdogs are targeting Google's plans to phase out third-party tracking cookies, building on a major lawsuit filed last year. The group of 15 attorneys general, led by Texas, updated its complaint about Google yesterday to include a more detailed case against the search giant, including new claims about Google's strategic use of the Chrome browser. In particular, the new complaint takes aim at recent privacy updates to Chrome, which could better protect users' personal data while also entrenching Google's market position.

Like the original Texas complaint, Tuesday's updated filing primarily focuses on Google's technology for targeting ads across the web. The attorneys general argue that Google used its power in search, streaming video, and other markets to stamp out independent advertising platforms, forcing small businesses and media outlets to use its system. But in the updated complaint, the states apply this argument to Google's 'Privacy Sandbox' -- a tool that's supposed to replace invasive third-party tracking cookies with a more limited system devised by Google. "Google's new scheme is, in essence, to wall off the entire portion of the internet that consumers access through Google's Chrome browser," the complaint reads. "Google is trying to hide its true intentions behind a pretext of privacy," the suit continues. With Privacy Sandbox, "Google does not actually put a stop to user profiling or targeted advertising -- it puts Google's Chrome browser at the center of tracking and targeting."

In response, Google said the new allegations rested on a misunderstanding of Chrome's privacy features. "Attorney General Paxton's latest claims mischaracterize many aspects of our business, including the steps we are taking with the Privacy Sandbox initiative to protect people's privacy as they browse the web. These efforts have been welcomed by privacy advocates, advertisers and our own rivals as a step forward in preserving user privacy and protecting free content. We will strongly defend ourselves from AG Paxton's baseless claims in court."

Teenage Twitter hacker Graham Ivan Clark has pleaded guilty to last summer's unprecedented bitcoin scam attack that involved the takeover of dozens of high-profile accounts on the social network, according to paperwork filed in Florida court on Tuesday. Clark, who was 17 when accused of leading the scam, will spend three years in prison as part of his plea deal. The Tampa Bay Times reported the news on Tuesday. From a report: Clark has already been credited with 229 days of time served since his arrest last summer. As part of the deal, Clark is also being sentenced as a "youthful offender," which lessened his prison time and also opens up the possibility that he can serve some of his sentence at a boot camp, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Clark will also be banned from using computers without permission and without supervision from law enforcement.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: For years, Uber has successfully deployed armies of lawyers and lobbyists around the world to fight attempts to reclassify drivers as company workers entitled to higher wages and benefits rather than lower-cost, self-employed freelancers. Now the ride-hailing giant is retreating from that hard-line stance in Britain, one of its most important markets, after a major legal defeat. On Tuesday, Uber said it would reclassify more than 70,000 drivers in Britain as workers who will receive a minimum wage, vacation pay and access to a pension plan. [It does not give the full protections of the classification known as full "employee," which includes paternity and maternity leave and severance pay if dismissed, among other benefits.] The decision, Uber said, is the first time the company has agreed to classify its drivers in this way, and it comes in response to a landmark British Supreme Court decision last month that said Uber drivers were entitled to more protections.

The decision represents a shift for Uber, though the move was made easier by British labor rules that offer a middle ground between freelancers and full employees that doesn't exist in other countries. That middle ground makes it unclear whether Uber will change its stance elsewhere. More labor battles are coming in the European Union, where policymakers are considering tougher labor regulations of gig-economy companies, as well as in the United States. In a statement, Uber said last month's court decision "provides a clearer path forward as to a model that gives drivers the rights of worker status -- while continuing to let them work flexibly, in the same way they have been since Uber's launch in the U.K. in 2012." Uber hasn't disclosed how much the reclassification would increase its operating costs, but the company maintains that it will become profitable this year.